Authorities say they may be close to solving a 30-year-old murder case

Jul. 12, 2013

Stan Potocki

Janet Raasch

Can you help?

If you have information about this crime, the Portage County Sheriff’s Office would like to hear it. Call Portage County Crime Stoppers at 888-346-6600. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.

Scott Rifleman

Portage County Coroner Scott Rifleman still remembers getting the page while deer hunting on Nov. 17, 1984, that the body of a missing University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student had been found in the town of Buena Vista.

Rifleman is just one of many people including detectives, deputies and family members who will never forget that day, and who would like to find out who killed her to bring those left behind some peace.

Authorities never solved the case of Janet Raasch, a 20-year-old University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student whose partially clothed and decomposing body was found in the woods south of Stevens Point.

Investigators followed leads to Pennsylvania and Maryland, the Department of Justice exhumed her body to perform DNA tests, and authorities believe they have a suspect but not enough evidence to get a conviction. But investigators believe that with new and former detectives working on the case, a conviction could be around the corner.

Nancy Raasch, Janet’s sister and close to her in age, is one of many who still believe that one day the case will be solved.

“I still hold out hope,” Nancy Raasch said. “Only time will tell.”

A missing business major

According to police accounts, Janet Raasch was declared missing on Oct. 15, 1984, after several friends reported her missing. Friends told police that she had a duffel bag and had been dropped off on a section of Highway 54. Raasch had switched shifts at the Debot Dining Center where she worked so that she could have off to travel home to Merrill that weekend.

Janet Raasch was last seen alive on Oct. 11, 1984, after a friend dropped her off at the intersection of State Highway 54 and County Highway JJ. Her body was later found about 300 feet into the woods two miles east of that intersection in the town of Buena Vista.

Hunters stumbled across her body on Nov. 17, 1984 and reported it to the Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said it appeared she had been strangled but were never able to confirm this because of the decomposing state of the body. An autopsy by forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Huntington in Madison revealed nothing conclusive though he told Rifleman he believed the Merrill native had been strangled.

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“We assumed it was a homicide,” said Rifleman, who had been on the job for about four years when the body was found.

“It was a really tragic case,” he said. “Her mom went to her grave not knowing who took her daughter’s life.”

Investigation continues

Kurt Schweers, who worked at the Portage County Sheriff’s Office, spent a large portion of his career working on the case as its primary detective. For several years he worked almost exclusively to find Janet Raasch’s killer, and still volunteers as a consultant on the case for the sheriff’s office.

“Janet can’t talk any more,” Schweers said. “We have to talk for her.”

In 2002, tips to the Wisconsin Department of Justice led authorities to exhume Janet Raasch’s body from Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery in Marathon County. DOJ agents sent samples from Janet Raasch’s body to the state crime lab, hoping that modern DNA methods would lead to evidence and a conviction.

Stan Potocki, who was under sheriff at the time Raasch’s body was found, and sheriff when her body was exhumed, said agents were working on a tip that she might have been pregnant when she was killed, which could have helped provide DNA evidence to solve the crime.

“We had a suspect,” Potocki said. “But the proof of having enough to arrest him and take him to court, we never had that.”

Schweers said the sheriff’s office has had a suspect since early on in the investigation but continues to look at other possible suspects.

“We have a suspect, but that doesn’t stop us from looking at other people,” Schweers said. “When they grab some person for murdering people, we look into all of it.”

Dealing with the loss

Nancy Raasch, along with Janet Raasch’s father, Leland Raasch, 85 of Merrill, were there the day they exhumed Janet Raasch’s body from its resting place at the cemetery.

Investigators went about their work cautiously but optimistically, careful to be respectful of Janet Raasch’s remains. Investigators had a priest present to perform a re-interment ceremony after the exhumation.

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“When you have to bury a loved one again, it’s like going through everything all over again,” Nancy Raasch said.

Leland Raasch, said that a week doesn’t go by that someone asks him about his daughter.

“I hope they can catch that guy,” Leland Raasch said. “It’s an old story, I don’t think they can follow up anything anymore, but you never know.”

Nancy Raasch said she was hopeful that the case would go to trial, but also apprehensive about the emotional toll a trial would exact.

A sense of closure

Josh Ostrowski, the sheriff’s office detective currently assigned to the case, firmly believes that the search for Janet Raasch’s murder will come to a conclusion.

“The case has been very diligently worked throughout the years, the info is there,” Ostrowski said. “It’s one of those cases where you have to put everything together, and you just need that one piece that might be in here somewhere, you just have to find it.”

Ostrowski works regularly with Schweers to sort through the mounds of information about the case that’s been collected over the years.

“I don’t get paid, I don’t want to get paid,” Schweers said. “I want to catch the person who did this.”

The two hope that combining years of research with a fresh pair of eyes might lead to the breakthrough they need to solve this 30-year-old murder case.

B.C. Kowalski can be reached at 715-345-2251. Follow him on Twitter as @BCreporter.